


but i always thought that i'd see you again

by killkissbe



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Apocalypse, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Ending, Character Death, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 05:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7155167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killkissbe/pseuds/killkissbe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles loses his little sister. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but i always thought that i'd see you again

  _For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. – Oscar Wilde, De Profundis_

 

By the time the others have checked Raven’s pulse, Charles and Jean already know the truth that can’t be undone.

For the longest time, Charles had promised not to read her mind (though no such promise was made by Raven who would still find the greatest joy in tripping her not-brother up, pretending to be mother or a teacher or one of his school friends) and now he’d give anything to.

But all that is left is silence, a life that changed the world reduced to nothing. Unique as she was, she couldn’t defeat the hand of a god.

A god that is dead now, dissolved into the air like half of the city that surrounds them.

Though he’s been near death for most of the day, the first time he spots her body (so bright, so vivid) void of life is the first time Charles admits aloud that he can’t breathe.

 

* * *

 

Getting Raven back to Westchester from Egypt is harder than it was to get them _into_ Egypt, but the combined abilities of Jean and Kurt mean that they’re aboard a plane headed home before long, before decomposition starts to set in.

The entire trip is spent in silence, not even Peter able to make a quip to lighten the load of grief they each carry on their shoulders, now.

Of course they are all sad, of course they all feel the loss of the mutant that took the step that meant they didn’t have to hide – but it’s Charles who bears the brunt of it, who can’t help but think of the little girl who’d wandered into his kitchen out of hunger and stood by his side for more than a decade. The first mutant he'd met, the one who'd made him feel less alone. Not just as a mutant, but as a child in a house that was enormous, luxurious, but empty of life, of love.

Occasionally, Hank catches Charles' gaze but he can never seem to hold it, the both of them too caught up in what ifs to linger on anything else for more than a moment. What if he'd made her stay on the beach, in Washington.

What if he'd never saved her at all.

 

* * *

 

Maybe that is the only solace Charles can find in all of this. Though she's dead, now, soon to be buried in the ground, there is something to be said for the life that being with Charles gave her. Before, she'd been on her own. Abandoned by her family – almost killed – and dependent on the kindness of strangers or their gullibility when it came to home security, Raven had only herself. A self that she was afraid to be since the first time it dawned on her that her birth was not a blessing.

Not to her parents.

So with Charles and the Xavier's she'd had opportunities she never would have without him, without them, and it's a comfort that Charles has to allow himself. He might not have saved her the last time, Apocalypse's grip might have been too tight, too strong, but he'd saved her the first time.

The first time and, he's sure she'd argue (if she was here and she's _not_ , she'll never be again), the one that counted.

 

* * *

 

The funeral is intimate, the truth that Raven hadn't made many friends in her years away from the mansion proving so. But most of the students attend the ceremony, some of them even shedding a tear for the inspiration they'd needed in the loneliest parts of their lives. 

Hank hangs in the back and keeps fixing his glasses, rubbing the fog off with the hem of his shirt in a way that's not discrete enough to hide the fact that he's been crying.

Charles says something about how unique Raven had been and how proud he was of her, how proud they all ought to have been of her. He reads Wilde – _De Profundis_ – because Wilde was one of Raven's favourites and he thinks of all of the nights he'd read from his thesis while she fell asleep against his chest, so warm and soft and alive.

He says nothing about that, though, wheeling himself away when he's done with his reading and asking if anyone else has something to say.

If they do, he hears none of it.

 

* * *

 

Charles is sure that there are ancestors of his who would object to the fact he arranges Raven's burial right on his property, but he finds it hard to care. Whether she'd admitted it or not, for a long time the mansion had been her home, the place she could be herself in a world where she dared not. It would be wrong to lay her to rest anywhere else. And he has spent more than enough time away from her in his lifetime.

In _her_ lifetime.

Erik visits and Charles should acknowledge him, should go out and swap condolences over the freshly dug earth but he can't seem to convince himself. Can't forget the years that he'd been sure Erik owned Raven's heart and soul before he'd had enough clarity to realise that Raven could not possibly be owned. Not by any man, woman or mutant.

In another time, in another world, her DNA had been taken from her, she'd suffered unbelievable torture. They'd managed through some miracle of mutation to stop that, to save her, but he still thinks about her writhing against metal tables and having her blood dragged out of her and knows, deep down, that they could never have captured her heart. 

Her goodness.

 

* * *

 

Hank arranges a golden plaque somewhere around the school that dedicates something to Raven's memory, and Charles appreciates the gesture and the knowledge that even as time passes and students leave them, her legacy will last. But it still feels like a bandaid for a bullet wound, a small act that cannot possibly come close to bringing her back.

He's a man of logic, of ration, but that doesn't mean that there aren't nights where he awakens with a start, certain he's heard her call out his name. 

That there aren't nights he calls out her name, too, like he had all those years ago when they were both children and nightmares plagued him. Plagued the both of them, him with all of the voices and all of the pain, her with fantasies of being discovered. Caught.

When they were small and all they had was each other they'd climb into the other's bed, tell each other about the badness until they were too tired and too warm to do anything but drift into unconsciousness.

Now, all he has is himself and the knowledge that she, too, is alone not-so-faraway in the cold, damp earth.

 

* * *

 

Years later, Nightcrawler – Kurt, he prefers – visits and confides in Charles a truth they'd both long suspected.

It's strange to think that there was a time when Raven was pregnant and Charles didn't know, but there are maybe a million different things he didn't know about her – that he'll never – and he'd rather focus on those that he does. Those that he wants to remember. Those that he's trying desperately not to forget.

In a way, it's like Charles has inherited a nephew although they don't share an ounce of DNA. Still, it's a piece of Raven back in his life, a piece that's alive and he can tell stories about their shared childhood to. About how his favourite tree had been her favourite, too, about how they'd swung from it and played beneath it and measured their height against it.

Kurt stays in one of the dozens of guest rooms and Charles can see from his own room at night that he goes out to visit the grave – there's grass covering it, now – and sits for a while. He says things, maybe in German, and Charles can't help but wonder how different things might have been for all of them if she'd brought Kurt to Westchester instead of leaving him in Germany to a woman whose name she barely knew.

Charles asks Kurt one day if he resents his mother for abandoning him but he shakes his head and says  _nein,_ tells him that he was raised well and learned to love _Gott_ and that the only thing he regrets is not knowing his  _mutter_ before she was _tot_.

"I regret that too," Charles tells him, hand on his shoulder. 

 

* * *

 

Time gets away from them and enough students graduate that Raven - Mystique – is only a memory to most, a monument that is talked about ceremonies and whose grave is sometimes visited by strangers with flowers. 

Charles grows old and the grief never quite goes but it softens, its edges less sharp. Nightmares are on occasion instead of every night. He's an  _onkel_ to Kurt, a friend to Erik and others, a professor. Despite what he's feared for so many years, prior to and since Raven's passing, he never stops being a brother.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw Apocalypse for a fifth time today and felt like writing fic. Being me, I had to make it super sad. I hope you enjoyed nonetheless. Oh, and I borrowed the fact that Mystique is a fan of Wilde from _Mystique_ by Brian K. Vaughan.
> 
> _nein_ – no  
>  _mutter_ \- mother  
>  _tot_ \- dead  
>  _onkel_ \- uncle


End file.
